Abuzz about insects
SCIENTIST Philip Ellery’s idea for creating a business using bugs as a food source began in an African laboratory amid a swarm of “big, fat and juicy” insects.
Dr Ellery was in Malawi as part of his PhD into HIV and on a late afternoon he recalls a swarm of “termite-looking insects” flying into the lab.
“The cleaning ladies were running around scooping them off windowsills,” he said. “Somebody told me they’re not doing it to clean up, they’re collecting them because they’re delicious and they’re really nutritious.”
That was about 15 years ago. Dr Ellery returned to Australia, finished his PhD in immunology and for the past decade has worked in Queensland in research commercialisation, most recently as the business manager at Griffith University’s Institute for Glycomics on the Gold Coast.
But as his career in science commercialisation has developed, he’s kept an interested eye on the emerging international “bugs-to-food market”, wanting to get involved himself.
“There’s a growing interest
and there’s serious investment in it,” Dr Ellery said. “But finding the time and the seed funding to do it has been elusive to me.”
Until now. He’s about to take 12 months off to pursue his business dream of turning protein-packed insects into pet food, funded by a $100,000 Palaszczuk Government fellowship through the $420 million Advance Queensland program.
Dr Ellery has made a prototype dog biscuit out of mealworms, the larvae of darkling beetles, already sold in Australian pet shops as a food for pet lizards.
“The dogs loved said.
The 39-year-old’s ultimate goal is to develop a manufacturing facility in rural Queensland. it,” he